A special give-away

http://justanotherhangup.blogspot.com/2009/10/special-give-away-give-away.html

Suzanne is offering a bag to be sent to someone you wish to honor as a breast cancer survivor. 

Unfortunately, I think most of us know far too many survivors as well as those engaged in a current battle.

October Schnibbles - Cindy Lou Who

After my disappointment in the first project, I altered my approach... completing my quilt is not a race, impatience does not pay, remember the basics. 

I wanted a small quilt to hang with this picture of my great-great grandmother Susan Augusta Brierly who was born in 1853.  Her daughter, my great grandmother, was born in 1872 - the beginning of the work of the workshop. 

I love the pattern - and the link to the past.

Have a great day!

Lynda

Check Canton Village Quilt Shop

Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Shop is having a give-away of five treasures that she brought back from market.  I have heard great things about her shop from friends - unfortunately, I don't think she was open when I lived in the next town over and had much time to kill when my daughter had her dance lessons in Canton...  I would have had about 40 minutes every week to 'browse'...

Go to http://cvquiltworks.blogspot.com/ and throw your hat into the ring. 

New England Pot Roast

I had to prepare this in order to figure out the basics as I don't have the written recipe. Since there are only two of us, I use a small cut of meat - less than 2 pounds so the ingredients would have to be adjusted for a larger pot roast.

Assemble a pot roast cut of meat, flour, beef stock, small jar of onions or one small sliced onion, carrots, cinnomon stick, grated horseradish, bay leaf, can of whole berry cranberry sauce, salt and pepper.

Season the meat with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, and brown using canola or corn oil. Remove meat from pan. Saute onion and carrots till onion is translucent and the vegetables have picked up the bits from browning the meat. Stir in cranberry sauce to melt (I use 1/2 a can for the smaller cut of meat, Add 1/4 cup horseradish at least. Throw in cinnamon stick and bay leaf, then place the meat back in the pan. Add stock to about 3/4 of the way up the side of the meat. (I used the whole container of College Inn Bold stock). Bring the mixture up to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 2 hours.

Serve over egg noodles. The sauce is thin but great flavor - you cannot tell that there is horseradish in the dish.

Autumn Recipe Swap

While in San Antonio for my son’s graduation from officer basic training, my Mother’s Day gift was a dinner on one of the riverwalk boats. It was an introduction to a very different guacamole that I tried to duplicate without success when back home. Thanks the Barefoot Contessa, I worked from her basic recipe and now provide the snack for the football games and family gatherings. After watching Everyday Italian, I added a my version of Giada’s homemade tortilla chip. No pics unfortunately – lost them in the camera!  Here's the empty bowl that I serve in...

Guacamole

4 Haas avocados

3 T. freshly squeezed lime juice (can use lemon)

1 small red onion, diced

1 large garlic clove, minced

1 t. salt

1 t. freshly ground pepper

1 t. cumin

1 medium tomato, seeded and diced

Cut avocado in half, remove the pits, and scoop the flesh out of the shell into a large bowl. Immediately add the lime juice, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and toss well. Using a sharp knife, slice through the avocados in the bowl until they are finely diced. Add the tomatoes. Mix well.

Tortilla Chips

12-6 inch soft taco shells (have used both flour and corn)

¼ cup Olive oil

1 t. dried oregano

½ t. pepper

Package shredded Mexican cheese

¼ t. salt

Preheat oven to 375. Line 2 sheet pans with foil. Whisk oil, oregano, pepper in small microwave safe bowl and microwave for 15 seconds (just till warm). Set aside for 15 minutes. Brush both sides of tortillas with oil mixture and stack. Cut into ½ inch strips and place on pans in single layer. Sprinkle lightly with cheese and salt. Bake for 12 minutes.

If you are not going to serve the guacamole immediately, cover with plastic wrap directly on the mixture and refrigerate. Place tortilla chips in plastic bag when cooled and hide – they disappear otherwise.

Check back on Wednesday for the best Yankee pot roast – cranberry sauce, horseradish, cinnamon stick… part of my shopping list.

Have a great day!
 
Lynda

Ladybug, ladybug fly away from my home!

Beware of a sunny day after a frosty night in the fall.  After spending the day looking at this...

... along with hundreds of her friends on every window... and in some cases in the house ... the news last night explained the migration of ladybugs to find a warm winter lodging.  The bug control websites cautioned about squishing them... so today I am armed with the vacuum cleaner.  If you hear of a crazy woman in Maine, running outside and emptying the vacuum container on the neighbor's property, you can say you heard it here first!  I'm not the pioneer woman in any way...

Have a great day.

Lynda

Craft Show

About a month ago, I thought it would be a good project to try a craft show as a participant rather than a looker.  Waiting for a house to sell these days is trying, so this provided a focus and creative outlet.  The show is Saturday, so I have finally started to gather the things together.  I have a wonderful neighbor who dabbles in wood and, after I mentioned the way I would like to display the bags, returned with this:

She used a quilt rack as the model -- and expanded it.  It's about 6 feet high and 7 feet long and completely portable.

I'm using some of my many baskets to display the smaller projects --

I have little tags to attach with washing instructions and prices... and, of course, several projects to finish.  One note to self - if I decide to do this again, I need to give myself a bit more lead time than one month!

Have a great day ...  Lynda

Pumpkin Patch Primitives Quilt Shoppe: It's a Happy Halloween Giveaway!

Pumpkin Patch Primitives Quilt Shoppe: It's a Happy Halloween Giveaway!

Brenda's Giveaway

http://pumpkinpatchprimitivequiltshoppe.blogspot.com/2009/10/its-happy-halloween-giveaway.html

I have not yet participated in this type of giveaway, and had a bit of a challenge to make all of the connections, but could not resist Brenda's post.  When you live in a 200 year-old renovated farmhouse, the spirits cry out for anything primitive and country.  Actually, the only spooky type event in our four years here has been a bat (or three) that flies around the house on the first Thursday in August... to many screams, yells, and lots of laughs.  Our method of bat removal - turn off the lights, open all doors and windows, and stand ourside for half an hour... worked each time!  Check Brenda's post...

Changes

My thoughts when starting this blog included a record of the changes outside of this window -- the first picture was taken on September 15 -- and this one on October 15.  This morning, my hummingbird feeder is crying to be taken down - the glass is decorated with frost. 

Kudos to Amy at Park City for her Blogger's Quilt Festival.  After browsing the 682 quilts, my thoughts...

Common threads:

• A quilt is made with and for friends and family.

• A quilt is made for a new baby, son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father, friend, stranger.

• A quilt celebrates a wedding, graduation, leaving for college, leaving for deployment to a distant land, moving away, or remembrance of life.

• A quilt is made for swaps.

• A quilt is the first quilt, most recent quilt, favorite quilt, antique quilt – but always a treasured quilt.

• A quilt is made from the most recent fabric collection, gently used clothes, vintage sheets, and scraps.

• A quilt is made to find a cure for breast cancer, ovarian cancer, Alzheimers, colon cancer, MS.

• A quilt is donated to Quilts of Valor, the Linus Project, local hospitals, the homeless, and for deployed troops.

• A quilt has imperfections.

• A quilt is made with love.

Have a great day!
 
Lynda

Amy's Brilliant Idea

I 'found' Amy through the Old Red Barn quilt along -- and transformed my method of pinning with thanks to Amy ever since -- and looked forward to this opportunity to think about my quilts and what I would share.  When I started quilting again with dear friends from Connecticut, we took several classes together.  Due to my impossible work schedule, I was limited to the classes I could take with them, and this one simply fit the schedule - fortunately...

I have been drawn to small quilts ever since I acquired this ...

It is an Ohio Star with Sawtooth by Kati Adams - 1 inch to 1 foot.  The description on the back reads:

This unique folkart collectible is made from authentic antique fabrics.  Like early quiltmakers, I frugally preserve each scrap, perusing my accumulation until the right combination emerges.  Scarcity is the central design element, affording the quilts an undeniable integrity.  Flaws in fabric, signs of wear and intermediate mending and seamwork are apparent.  The use of antique fabric provides a revealing window into the quiltmaking process of the past and produces quilts that are truly reflective of the American woman's cultural heritage. 

While the quilt that I am sharing is not one of the miniature reproduction quilts, it measures 40 x 40 which I thought was a small quilt at the time, and for me represents a leap forward in my quilting journey. 

Side one -- spring/summer

Side Two -- fall/winter

Lessons learned from this -- patience, sense of accomplishment, confidence -- and some projects use a lot of thread!

Thank you Amy --

Lynda

Slow to catch on

Despite my initial plan to begin to record my progress on various projects, I have yet to make writing a more frequent practice.  So while the Red Sox play in the background, I need to do a brain dump of the past few days -- part of this exercise is to begin to create something of a journal for myself as it is supposed to support mental health! 

First, a bit of a leaf update -- we had heavy rains and wind on Wednesday so there are already some bare trees, but the ones across the street are in full color...

The farmhouse is on one side of the gravel road and our barn on the other.  The pony is an almost three year old Welsh cross with a huge personality and cute as can be. 

I have been preparing for a craft show in a few weeks - a first venture.  After 20 years of administrative work, I finally have had the time to pursue quilting and explore some options.  I've been working on a lot of bags and fabric baskets, pin cushions and beaded pins, and candle mats.  It has done wonders for my blood pressure, although as the time draws near, I may panic...

I have to run and turn off the game - the Angels just scored... I have promised my BIL, who is a diehard Red Sox fan that I won't watch as every time I turn on one of his teams, the other team scores... OOPS.

Lynda

Fall

A beginning...

After several months collecting blogs on Google Reader and lurking around the edges, I started to feel guilty (as only one who attended 16 years of Catholic school can) for not joining the conversation.  The greatest challenge has been to figure out what to share.  I have wanted to start 'serious' quilting for a long time, but only since deciding to leave my profession have I had the time.  Initially, I made a commitment to finish some projects that had been started a while ago.  Then I discovered blogs, and began to break out of a narrow approach to quilting and have been loving it. 

My stimulus to even want to create quilts came from an incident involving my great-grandmother and family history collected by my cousin.  My Dad's side of the family has a long history in Lancaster County, PA.  On his father's side, they trace back to the first German speaking settler in Lancaster County; on his mother's side, to the earliest settlers in northern Maryland.  So there is certainly something genetic involved.  When my great-grandmother passed, her will dictated that everything be sold at auction.  She was a prolific quilter and I have fond memories of her quilts on all of the beds in the house.  She apparently had made quilts for each great-grandaughter which were stacked in her front room -- but without labels.  By law, they had to be sold at auction at a time when I lacked the resources or time to attend the auction.  So somewhere out there, there's a quilt that was made for me. 

While I dabbled for a brief time, I did not become active in quilting until my dear friend signed me up for a tea cozy class and began to introduce me to the process of stash building and collecting ever gadget possible for quilting.   Since moving to Maine four years ago, I have created a quilting space in a four season room with windows on three sides - wonderful natural light until the snow covers the one side! 

My reason for finally posting - my Schnibbles project.  I love the pattern, love the fabric - do not love that I rushed through the project and did not follow my usual, methodical method of completing the piecing -- very bad points in some areas... thus a look from a distance.

... because I had to complete this for new baby who arrived on Monday.

So, I send this to cyberspace --

Lynda